IEM's and IR's. Improvement or fail??

Glauben

Glauben

Member
I don't recall seeing this issue discussed previously, having used the search fxn...but I have not begun using IR's yet. Due to a recent change in our worship team's direction, I've started using IEM's (although still using my FBT12ma as backline). I'm wondering if there's a significant improvement in the tone from the guitar/axe-fx through IEM's or headphones with IR's. I also have not tried upgrading my cables.

I'm using the AT M2's (but w/o the ambient mic). Has anyone tried mixing their mic'ed signal and a direct signal (from the Axe) through an IEM system, which would allow some degree of an ?analog? signal within the mix? or is this redundant? BTW, my AT-M2 is in 'my' rack, not at FOH.

Not trying to reinvent the wheel, just looking for better sound.
Thanks
 
IEM = in ear monitor.

Well my experience in using IEMs is that they sound brittle no matter what you do. I think there was a thread about that a while ago. I'm sure IRs will please the audience more than an out of balance mix with a cab on the stage. IEMs with guitar is a fail for me at least. There's always a wire stuck somewhere.
 
Clark Kent said:
IEM = in ear monitor.

Well my experience in using IEMs is that they sound brittle no matter what you do. I think there was a thread about that a while ago. I'm sure IRs will please the audience more than an out of balance mix with a cab on the stage. IEMs with guitar is a fail for me at least. There's always a wire stuck somewhere.
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I know, I just didn't get what he meant with his post. He's asking if IRs would be an improvment, and mentions an ambient mic. That leads me to think it's about an acoustic, because when going direct with an electric, IRs a must.
 
IEM's can suck, unless you can afford the high end stuff or as Clark Kent points out, you have a good monitor mix with an ambient mic from the board fed back so you can have SOME room in it.

They tend to be tinny to me, that's for a variety of reasons. Bad seal in your ear cavity, cheap drivers, etc.. The high end stuff is very expensive, but a much better experience sound wise. If you can pipe in some ambient room mix from the board, it makes it a MUCH better experience... in my experience. :D

There are a LOT of advantages, but the musician has to weigh the pluses and minuses and understand it will NEVER be the same experience as playing with a loud stage mix.

IR's have nothing to do with it.

IMHO, YMMV.
 
Thanks for all the insights guys. Obviously, if using IEM's is a mandatory thing for this project, their sonic inadequacies will not likely turn me away from their use. I'm certain my next step will be to utilize the ambient mic approach, whether through the AT-M2 bodypack lapel mic input, or via a separate mic feeding into the transmitter. I know neither of these approaches will get me to sonic nirvana, I'm just looking for a way to make things a bit more tolerable. The floor/PA monitors (and possibly the board and its operater) are not the highest quality, so I have to choose my battles wisely.

When I was selling high-end audio back in the day, it was always that last 2-4% (sometimes up to 10%) of the cost of a system that made considerable differences in sound quality (ie. cables, foot spikes, power conditioners, etc). With the Axe, we have such a device that is worlds apart in terms of its capabilities, but I certainly understand the argument for the loss of timbre and resonance and "ambience" that is lost in using IEM's. I'm still looking for that 2-4%. Maybe between IR's, cables, and better seals on my IEM's, I can gain something.....maybe not. :?:

Anyhow, insights and "experiences" are appreciated.
 
Glauben said:
When I was selling high-end audio back in the day, it was always that last 2-4% (sometimes up to 10%) of the cost of a system that made considerable differences in sound quality (ie. cables, foot spikes, power conditioners, etc).
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That is at best highly questionable, at worst just downright wrong. One thing is certain: that "last 2-4% (sometimes up to 10%)" made a considerable difference in the profit margin the dealer made on the sale of a system. :cool:
 
I agree with the profit margin statement, however I have experienced what I would consider improvements from running cables and wires in the neighborhood of between $4 and $18 per foot. (Being in the business has its advantages.) Of course, every component plays a role. I expected some opposition here, but not from those with green letters. This is surely a case of YMMV. No offense. Your ears are not my ears, though we both have an appreciation for the Almighty axe.
 
Glauben said:
I agree with the profit margin statement, however I have experienced what I would consider improvements from running cables and wires in the neighborhood of between $4 and $18 per foot.
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That's not what you said. Here's the quote:

"it was always that last 2-4% (sometimes up to 10%) of the cost of a system that made considerable differences in sound quality (ie. cables, foot spikes, power conditioners, etc)."

As a degreed audio professional with 30+ years experience at the engineering/R&D level, my professional response is that this is almost entirely mistaken. I made a concerted effort to soft-pedal my response. I could have simply said it's BS, because that's what most of it is.

(Being in the business has its advantages.)
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See above. You have no need to tell me that. I'm actually in "the business," and not as a "sales consultant" in a retail store.

I expected some opposition here, but not from those with green letters. This is surely a case of YMMV.
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The statement of yours to which I replied is demonstrably incorrect, and it does a substantial disservice to naive individuals who might be inclined to accept it without question. The greatest audible differences - those that can be repeatably demonstrated in double-blind listening tests - are due to those devices that convert energy from one form to another (transducers): microphones, loudspeakers, and phono cartridges; and to effects caused by local acoustics, including loudspeaker/listener locations. These elements always constitute far more than the "last 2-4% (sometimes up to 10%) of the cost of a system." There really is a lot of science that has been applied to this area. I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with it.

The one place where cabling makes a significant difference is in those scenarios involving a high-impedance source. This is the primary reason that the entire field of professional audio has used low-impedance devices since WWII. Differences among guitar cables are audible for this reason, but in this case the one parameter that always causes those differences - shunt capacitance - is trivially easy to measure and minimize (assuming you're looking for maximum transparency). Some of the lowest-capacitance, most transparent guitar cables I own are the cheap store-brand types.

If there really are audible differences due to differences among line-level or speaker cabling, they are, without exception, due to poorly-designed equipment and/or improper choice of cable type or gauge. Cables can only cause degradation of an audio signal. Preventing this degradation is trivially easy and inexpensive.
 
Since 2005 I use IEM live as a guitarist in a Top-40 Band.

I think it's wrong to compare IEM vs. GuitarCab vs. wedge monitoring. IEM brings a lot of advantages but ot it's complete own feeling. It takes some time and work to adapt your own listening habits to the IEM feeling. IEM wll never sound like a loud 4x12 cab, it sounds like IEM.

In Juli '09 i changed from the Zoom G9.2tt to the Axe Standard. And man, that was a huge step. I never was happy with the cab sim of the zoom. The Axe with IR's (stock or redwirez) makes it very easy for me to fit the guitar sound in my IEM Mix. Therefore the IR's make big diffierence.

The quality of the IEM system and the earphones makes a big difference. The earplugs should be coustom molded, any other way is just a compromise. Better use a good studio headphone than a IEM earphone with silicon or foam plugs.

I'm not a big fan of ambiant micros. I tried it and found that the ambiant micro made my IEM mix muddy, particulary when the PA is loud.

Toni
 
You certainly don't need custom molds to achieve good isolation or sound. Yes, they are an improvement but you can get great results without going custom. I have a set of Westone W2's that sound absolutely fantastic. And I've compared them to several other high end circumaural headphones and for clarity, the Westones are better. They key to making non-custom IEM's work is the fit of the tips. Foam tips are generally accepted as the best, but I have switched to a longer lasting tri-flange silicone tip and hardly notice a sonic difference between the two (they are, however, slightly less comfortable). But to really get quality info about IEM's (custom or not) check out the IEM forum on Head-Fi http://www.head-fi.org/forum/list/103

I prefer IEM's to wedges or an amp, honestly. I use my Axe with RedWirez and they sound great through the headphones. The AxeFx will never feel like being in the room with a 4x12, but I believe it can sound like it. You can use a very flat reference mic room IR to capture that sound. However I think why people say it never sounds the same is because you don't really want to send that sound to FOH. You typically want to send close mic IR's to FOH. And that will sound different to you in your ears. But you are hearing how it is being sent to the board, which in my opinion lets you improve your overall tone.

I also play at my church, and my rig right before the AxeFx was to run my head with a 50 ft speaker cable to a 1x12 cab in a closet where no sound would be heard on stage or in the church. And I was running the amp just over the edge of breakup. With my real amp, there was a huge difference between what sounded good in the room and what sounded good coming through the headphones. I tweaked out the EQ and settings to make it sound good and that rig was very good. The point I'm trying to make is you have to use this as your reference, not an "in the room" 4x12 sound.

Another thing I like about IEM's and the AxeFx is even if I'm sending FOH a mono feed, I get to hear the reverbs and other effects such as chorus in all their stereo glory.
 
I think he meant

"it was always that last 2-4% (sometimes up to 10%) of the 'sound quality' that made considerable differences in the cost of a system"

rather than

"it was always that last 2-4% (sometimes up to 10%) of the cost of a system that made considerable differences in sound quality"
 
My thanks to equilibrium and guitarman for your insightful responses and for redirecting the thread. Most helpful and non-toxic.
 
Just Like Toni, I have been using IEMs for quite a while (my first system was the Shure PSM400 that came with Shure E1 earbuds. I think it was 2003 or 2004). I used the PSM400 right up to the middle of June of this year and then replaced all of my wireless gear because of the stupid FCC sale of the 700Mhz band (making operation of 700Mhz gear now illegal!). over the years, I tried several different earbuds. I went from E1s to E3s, E3s to E5s, E5s with foam to E5s with custom molds, E5swith custom molds to Starkys (avoid these at all possible cost!), Starkys back to the E5s with the custom earmolds, E5s to custom molded Sensaphonic 2X-S (which is what I use currently and they are great). obviously, I'm not completely new to IEMs. all that time I used the PSM400 and we have 3 ambient mics on stage (1 on each side of the stage that the keyboard player and bass player use to communicate to the rest of the band and my headset mic, which goes through an XLR A/B box so I can toggle between FOH and MON mix only for communicating to the rest of the band). I've always enjoyed all the pros of IEMs (hear everything no matter where I am on stage, no ringing in the ears after a show, no uncontrolled feedback from runaway wedges, etc.) versus probably the only con (IMHO) which is not having quite the same guitar sound as what is coming out of FOH.

Anyway, when I replaced my wireless gear, I went from the Shure PSM400 to the AKG IVM4 and all I can say is WOW! it was similar to the experience I had when I went from the BOSS GT-Pro to the Axe-Fx Ultra! With the IVM4, both the transmitter AND the receiver are feature rich and I can actually hear my guitar the way I expect to hear it. in fact, after the show on Saturday night, I was talking to our bass player about how it actually felt "old school" like I was on a stage full of wedges and I wasn't using IEMs at all. I am in "hog heaven" and could not be happier with my monitor sound!

I know that Shure just released the PSM900 and I'm positive it is a great system. I also know it's not really "apples to apples" when you compare AKG's top of the line (newer technology) system with an older entry/midlevel system from Shure, but boy was there a huge difference in the whole IEM experience.

bottom line; the Axe-Fx with the best IRs on the planet won't help you if your IEM system isn't up to the same standard as your guitar rig. and it's not just about the earbuds you use or how good of a fit you get (yes those things help, but they are only part of the equation). look at it this way; there are lots of threads in this forum comparing power amps, powered speakers, etcetera. why? because you don't want to take a piece of gear like the Axe-Fx and hook it up to an inferior power amp, powered speaker or whatever. so why expect great results from an inferior IEM system? The Axe-Fx is not a cheap piece of gear, but we all spent the money because we wanted the best possible sound, so the same should be true for your IEM system. Some might say "I spent all my money on the Axe-Fx and can't afford a better IEM system right now." all I can say is, start saving your money and do the best you can with what you have until you can upgrade your IEM system.

Steph
 
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